FLOORS...

We have been much involved lately with what is underfoot… We’ve been floored!

The floor of our living room is recycled tongue-&-groove fir boards from the original house when we remodeled almost 20 years ago. It was removed & stored while the entire house was lifted & a new foundation was poured. The house had originally been built as a simple seasonal cabin perched on piers.

The flooring was relaid randomly & sanded only lightly enough to minimize the scars from wear & divots from previous sanding, . It was a choice made of both economy & aesthetics. This house is much about wood… simple & honestly casual. Our contractor was & still is a master of carpentry grounded in the shipbuilding of Martha’s Vineyard where he apprenticed. We appreciate & celebrate both his technical skill & sensitivity. Peter Anderson has become a friend & neighbor over the years.

The larger part of the floor is an art-piece which Stephen commissioned as an integral part of the of the re-model plans. It was installed while we were traveling & was overlaid with a sheets of corrugated protection until we returned… tantalizingly concealing the richness of Galen’s conception… . Wanting a better view we tried to peek under a corner, but that did not help. Ultimately we waited until the construction was finished to see the entire composition, which fills the kitchen & adjoining area, the guest bedroom & bath.

Galen used designs inspired by the First Nation People called Haida…laying down a meandering mosaic of painted Medite… which needs careful tending & requires resealing every few years to protect the rather fragile surface. It was time to have that work done…

Right, Left… Up, Down… everything got stacked & moved around to alternately free sections of the two kinds of flooring for the application of polymer varnish & drying time in several stages. After this extended process we’ve now begun to move back in… evaluating, cleaning & trying to edit what we choose to live with…

One evening I saw the scarf which I brought back from India & have worn habitually for years draped over the couch. The imagination behind my camera’s eye wondered whether Isadora might have been saved if she did not return to collect a scarf left in such hurried departure! hers is a favorite story in my collection of romantic notions. I once designed a bracelet featuring the big wheels of a deco roadster… a jeweled scarf trailing toward the spokes.

Isadora Duncan‘s fondness for flowing scarves was the cause of her death in 1927 in an automobile accident in Nice, France. The famed American dancer was the passenger in an Amilcar CGSS when her silk scarf became entangled around the open-spoked wheels and rear axle, pulling her from the car and breaking her neck.

Done with FLOORS!

I close with a selfie through the mirrors set into the guestroom door which is another piece of art… by Nils

DOORS!